West Virginians knew our state’s child welfare system was a mess — and regularly failing children and families — toward the end of the Justice administration, but a report by the U.S. Department of Human Services Office of Inspector General shows us the situation may have been even worse than we thought.

In a 100-case sample, the report showed the state’s Bureau of Social Services failed to comply with child abuse and neglect requirements 91% of the time: 74 reports did not include a required written notification letter; initial assessments were not completed within 30 days of receiving a referral in 61 reports; 41 reports included no required interviews with children or adults during the initial assessment; mandated reporters did not receive notification of whether a child abuse and neglect referral had been accepted for assessment or screened out in 41 reports; nine reports included no required safety plan; and eight reports did not include required impending safety threat risk assessments.

According to the report, the bureau blamed staffing shortages and high caseloads. But bureaucratic failure to that degree is a symptom of something much more rotten. We know that in at least one child’s case, the failure was likely deadly.

Gov. Patrick Morrisey’s administration has worked to address some of the shortcomings noted by the federal agency. Alex Mayer replaced Cynthia Persily as state Department of Human Services secretary. Child Protective Services policy has been revised; efforts have been made to improve communications with the public, transparency, training, and investigations involving the foster care system and CPS.

And someone is actually moving the needle on those staffing shortages. The vacancy rate is down from a peak of 27.3% in 2023 to 8.5% in the most recent reporting. There are still, however, 81 vacant positions to fill.

Perhaps knowing there is better organization in place with improved transparency and accountability (and prioritization of doing the work to support children and families) will help in the recruiting effort as Mayer and his team continue to chip away at staffing shortages.

Meanwhile, those in Human Services will likely have to live with increased scrutiny for quite some time, as the mess left behind by Persily and Co. is cleaned up and MUST stay that way.